Apps We (Bwog Staff) Love: 2019 And Perhaps Only Edition

By Jeffrey Ndubisi on
Jul 22, 201919 Comments

I, like you, have a phone. That phone has apps. Not all of them are all that useful, I suspect most are junk, and if recent reportingis tobe believed, we really ought to just throw anything remotely connected to the Internet away and become the neo-Luddites we were made to be. We may be able to stave off the Singularity yet.

(Ooh, face aging app! Never mind.)

Anyway, here’s some apps that we at Bwog find useful and/or fun for your Columbia and NYC needs. [By the way, this’ll be me talking.]

Julia Ulziisaikhan, Daily Editor

Venmo (iOS/Android): “Useful for when you have to pay your friend back for that slice of Koronets.”

Apple Maps (iOS):“That rat bastard app got me so freaking lost during NSOP and I was just wandering around Manhattan alone hauling a giant tower fan in 90º weather. Made me swear off going into the city alone for a month before I realized the real problem.”

[Real shit, GPS sucks in Manhattan. I was at 30 Rock a few months back, and ended up getting a band of British tourists lost after giving them bad Google Maps directions. Still haunts me that they may have never made it to their destination.]

Forest (iOS/Android): “Forces me to put down my phone in the library and not get distracted while growing a cute animated tree that does if I use my phone before time’s up.”

MyNoise (iOS/Android): “If you don’t like listening to music while you study but can’t stand the sound of people breathing in Butler, download this app full of amazing noise generators.” (“Though, the iPhone app currently has more robust functionality than the Android app.” [typical.])

Period Tracker (iOS/Android): “Exactly what it says on the tin. If you’re a person with a period who has not kept track of your cycle before, this is a good way to get in the habit.”

Word Reference (iOS/Android): “A great dictionary app to get you through the language requirement, also has a huge forum/community that probably has already answered your question about that one weird Italian idiom.”

[Gonna add one for the “estudiantes” in the room: SpanishDict (iOS/Android).]

[Isabel also recommends you download: your bank’s official app to track your finances; and your news app of choice. Unfortunately, there’s no Bwog app, but did you know Columbia students get free access to the New York Times?]

Zoe Sottile, Internal Editor

Mint (iOS/Android): “Good for budget tracking! College is EXPENSIVE – you can customize it a lot and it’ll send you emails telling you if you went over budget, if you stayed under, etc. to keep you accountable to your goals.”

Signal (iOS/Android): [From the devs: “Signal uses an advanced end-to-end encryption protocol to keep your conversations private.” Do with that information what you will.]

Duolingo (iOS/Android): “Helps you with that language requirement! Plus, it’s a great way to kill time on the subway instead of just scrolling through Twitter.

Headspace (iOS/Android): “A great app for meditating!! Meditation is a fantastic way to help manage anxiety and stress. I just did the free starter meditation set and now keep up a daily meditation practice.”

Jeffrey Ndubisi, Staff Writer/Me

Office Lens (iOS/Android): I know, I know, another mobile scanner. But this one’s first-party (Microsoft), can convert scans to Word docs, and can save to OneDrive. Ignore all other apps. Would I lead you astray?

Dark Sky (iOS/Android): Hyperlocal weather app. Tells you when it’s gonna rain down to the hour. I like it, but your regular weather app will serve you just as well.

Pharos Print (iOS/Android): Takes a minute or two to setup (here’s CUIT’s guide), but you can send docs to PawPrint (Columbia’s printing system) from your phone. Like, for example, if you need a copy of that doc you scanned with Office Lens.

Interval Timer (Android): Lit Hum texts are long and tedious. I try to gamify things by challenging myself to complete a page a minute. This app lets me set up a recurring timer to do just that. It’s more so for workouts, but I’m exercising my brain, so… (Here’s a similar app for iOS.)

Alarmy (iOS/Android): It’s loud, it’s obnoxious, and it won’t shut up until you answer fucking calculus questions or shake your phone like it’s a damn Shake Weight. Perfect for the 8am classes that I willingly signed up for!

Angry Birds: I want to live forever young in 2009.

That’s all, folks! Let us know in the comments if you’ve got any other apps you’d like to recommend. Alternatively, feel free to ask for any recommendations for applications/programs for your own niche needs – I’ll gladly be your tech guru.

Header image by Jeffrey Ndubisi

Tags

android

android 5eva gfy imessage

apps

brave browser is chrome without google's creepy ad tracking built in

I also have windows programs I'd love to recommend but we said apps so

ios

negativespace is a great app for windows that gives you a quasi-night mode on windows 10

starting the new term off right with another tech-adjacent post

there's an app called tray touch toggle that lets you turn your windows touchscreen on and off with the tap of a button

@anon (amara tere’ banks, yoshi.rocks3000@gmail.com, 3107453272) 1. say it with your chest “””anon”””
2. the current board is entirely cc ??
3. if you care even more than one ounce, go to a meeting and make a pitch instead of leaving pathetic comments

@Anonymous Before buying any software, check out Sourceforge.net and fossdroid.com
There is a good argument why open source software is better than that you pay for.
Basically, open source has more users, hence more bugs get caught.
Believe it or not, many firms are so anal they won’t let employees use expensive software,
afraid it will somehow cost them too much. But open source gets used like crazy.

@Anonymous Get the grub app to multi-boot. Put plain DOS 6 on the root partition with exactly 555 MB, Then do an Android partition. Then choose one of the “special spin” Linux (Fedora Scientific Spin, Quantian, CAE Linux, Bio Linux, Poseidon Linux, Science Linux – with all the hard science software pre-installed). Then put Windows (Microsoft was never intended for adults). Then make a data partition in a format all the software can access.

@Anonymous The coolest app for STEM is Jasymca, a sub-clone of both Matlab and Macsyma. It is available in Java, Android and Apple versions. You can use the Java version almost anywhere. So you can’t do definite integrals, doe sit really matter on the subway, where you can plot your model before you get to your desk?

@Anonymous There exist Android matlab emulators (addi and scilab) as well as r-language (com.appsopensource.r.apk) a “Honda” version of Macsyma (Maxima), texportal, “zielm” emacs with way too tiny font, Kortsaridies WEKA, and even a CAD viewer. I have had trouble however, using Java on Android.

@Anonymous Portableapps.com is cool. You can shoehorn your Windoze software to run it from a USB without installing. You can get freeocr, emacs, ganttproject, gnucash accounting, miktex, pdfarchitect, PUTTY, R, FreeMat (matlab), maxima, SCP and XAMPP, Elmer multiphysics FEA, GMESH, and Open Office.

@Anonymous I heard there is a cool app that uses just the plain microphone, speaker and camera on a cell phone to find out if those boobs or balls are real. They call it something like “signal scavenger”.

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